Back in the saddle again

As today is the first day since Friday that I've woken up without feeling like someone's taken a wire scrubber to my respiratory system, it's time to get back to work. For better or for worse, though, I'm spending the day at home, working from my PC instead of heading into the office, just in case. (There are circumstances in which it's nice to be able to do that.) If worse comes to worst, I have more sick days that I can spend.

I suspect that I've mentioned before in this journal that I co-wrote an article with Dr. Luis Caris on tobacco smoking in Chilean youth, early last summer - I think we submitted the article in July. (By "co-wrote", as it happens, I mean that while I did the analysis and actual writing for the article, Dr. Caris did all of the research and was the primary author listed.) Anyway, the article was apparently published this month, in Revista Panamericana de Salud Pública / Pan American Journal of Public Health; I have yet to see a copy, but it's apparently waiting in Roommate's mailbox at work for him to bring home to me. Given how tired I was of working on the other paper that needed to be written - and I'm fairly certain I wrote about that recently - I'm oddly pleased to have the first in print, and not in a "vindicated" way. I've had things published before, but this feels different for some reason.

fadethecat, A Certain Something should have been delivered yesterday. Please let me know if you haven't seen it yet.

Well.

Just received the "we're trying to promote you, so stop fucking up" talk at work. And it's applicable, I'm afraid; I haven't been as diligent as I should have been. There's been a lot on my mind, but that's no excuse. I need to try harder. This time last year I liked and enjoyed my job, and it's my responsibility to at least get back to that level of productivity.

And that's the last I'm going to say about that. Move on, be productive, and use the past as an example of what not to do, not as an excuse to mope.

I need to get out of town for a weekend. Not this weekend - I'm moving - but maybe the weekend after next. It can't really be far - I won't be able to afford far - and I doubt I can cross any mountains, so I'm really rather limited to the east coast, but other than that, ideas are welcome!

Oh. Wow.

If you have ever loved Spider-Man at all - even the smallest bit - then go read Amazing Spider-Man #58/499 right now.

(I didn't even realize what the number was. Knowing that, it makes a little more sense. But even still - a comic where the last page makes my jaw drop and the words "holy shit" emerge without me even really being conscious of saying them... - wow.)